


Sing a Song of Sixpence

by Sorrel



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Flirting, Size Difference, actually-a-burglar AU, background unrequited pining, classic warrior-rogue friendship, just so much flirting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: When he rode into Hobbiton, Dwalin knew nothing of the burglar at the end of the road, save that they had Gandalf's most fervent recommendation.  (And that was reason enough to look elsewhere, if you asked him—which of course, nobody did.)  But Dwalin would never fear to tread anywhere his king bade him to follow: not on the bloodfields of Moria, and certainly not in the peaceful green hills of the Shire.  The notion that he might have something in common with their erstwhile burglar never once crossed his mind—and certainly not that he mightlikethe cheeky halfling.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, I picture Bella as being played by a slightly aged-up [Alicia Vikander](https://www.google.com/search?q=alicia+vikander&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX0ebW47LaAhXSyVMKHXULAD4Q_AUICigB&biw=1440&bih=769), complete with Tomb Raider biceps.

_Sing a song of sixpence,_  
_A pocketful of rye;_  
_Four and twenty blackbirds,_  
_Baked into a pie._

_When the pie was opened_  
_The birds began to sing;_  
_Wasn’t that a dainty dish,_  
_To set before the King!_

-English Nursery Rhyme

###### 

Belladonna Baggins was twelve years old when she went on her first Adventure.

Oh, she'd been on adventures before, of course: she'd climbed trees and chased frogs and hunted for wood sprites and camped out overnight—twice, even!—and once, when she was nine and visiting her kin in Buckland, some of her cousins had even taught her how to _swim_. 

(Her father hit the bloody roof when he found out about it, of course, but: _swimming_. Nobody else in Hobbiton knew how to swim.)

Still, those were lowercase-A adventures, as her mother put it. Today, she was about to embark on a _capital_ Adventure.

Or at least that's what her mother said. So far, Adventuring mostly seemed to consist of putting things in bags and getting yelled at by relatives. A great deal of the former in Bell's case, and a great deal more of the latter in her mother's.

"Be _reasonable,_ sister. You can't simply set off on one of your rambles with a child in tow!"

"I don't see why not," came her mother's smooth, slightly amused tones. "She's not much bigger than my travelling-pack."

Bell clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from giggling and giving the game away. When Aunt Mirabella had arrived, a thundercloud on her face that only grew darker when she saw the disordered state of the parlor, Mama had been quick to take her into the side garden, so they could 'scrap away from prying little ears.' If her mother had remembered that the window in the study was habitually left open to enjoy the fresh eastern breeze, or that the window faced directly out to the garden, she'd made no mention when she'd left, arm tucked securely through her sister's. Bell had wasted no time in scampering into the study, where now she crouched atop her father's writing-desk, listening intently.

"For once in your life, be _serious._ She's your _daughter,_ not a piece of luggage!"

"True. Luggage isn't capable of riding a pony on its own. She'll be _much_ more useful."

"Bella!"

Mama snorted. "You might as well leave off, you know. My mind's been made up."

"And not a drop of reason you'll hear to change it, will you?" Mirabella's voice drooped with resignation, almost too quiet to be heard through the half-open garden window. "You've always been stubborn."

"And you've always been too quick to involve yourself in the business of others, sister-mine. Was it Father who sent you to speak with me? Or Donna?"

A pause. "It was Grim, if you must know."

"Dear brother. Well, he should have had the courage to speak to me himself, if he was of a mind to stick his nose where it's unwanted."

"You give him too little credit, dear sister. I offered. He was set to come himself, but little Lily's still too weak to move."

"And so you saw fit to appoint yourself speaker in his stead."

It was rare to hear anger in her mother's honeyed voice, but now it snapped like a whip, cold as a ice at Yule. Bell quailed to hear it, drawing herself down tighter in her crouch. It was occuring to her, for the first time, that perhaps there were some things not meant for her ears that she wouldn't _want_ to hear.

She couldn't bring herself to draw away from the conversation, though. For all she couldn't understand why Mama was so upset.

"Someone had to! You're making a mistake."

"Perhaps. But if so, it's mine to make."

"Is it?" Auntie Mira sounded pretty angry herself. "And how will you pay your way, once you're on the road? _Think,_ Bella. All of your funds are bound in this land, right here. You've barely coin enough to take you _Bree,_ much less any further. And you've a daughter to care for now! You can't be up to your old tricks, not like when you were a lass. You need to set an example for her. Especially now that-"

Whatever her mother said in response Bell was not to hear, because her foot slipped on a loose piece of paper, and she went to a ground in a tumbling rush, _thump-thump!_ She couldn't quite bite back her yelp of pain when she hit the floor, but clapped her hands over her mouth a moment later, eyes wide against the worry of discovery. There was a suspicious silence from the other side of the wall, and then the rustle of fabric as the sisters moved away from the window.

_Blast!_

Her mother found her there a half-hour later, sorting the letters into stacks on the floor so she'd have a defense against eavesdropping if anyone asked her what she was doing. But she said nothing when she came in, only knelt down next to her and started sorting through the piles she hadn't gotten to yet.

Finally, curiosity got the better of her. Even knowing that it was an admission of sorts, Bell took a deep breath and said, "Why doesn't Auntie Mira want us to leave, Mama?"

There was a long pause, and Bell cringed, certain she'd overstepped. But then she felt her mother's cool, long-fingered hand come to rest on the nape of her neck, just below the first twist of her braid, and she knew all was forgiven.

"Your aunt is only worried for you," her mother said quietly. "You can't blame her for it. That's what family is for." A soft laugh. "No matter how irritating it can be at times."

Bell let herself lean into the soft swell of her mother's shoulder, as warm and welcoming as it was when she was very small and had injured herself with some bit of derring-do with the neighborhood lads. "It's because Papa died, isn't it?"

Her mother let out a shaky breath. "Yes, dear heart. Mira doesn't want us to leave, not so soon after the funeral. She's not alone. Father wants us to move back into the Smials. That's what hobbits do, when there's a loss. They draw close to their family."

_They,_ her mother said, as if they themselves were not hobbits. And yet Bell understood her meaning perfectly. "But not us."

"No, darling, not us. Or, not _me_ , at any rate, and you have always taken after me." Her mother's hand was steady as it smoothed down her back. "For better and for worse."

Bell didn't know what to say to that, and so she said nothing.

After a moment, her mother straightened up, reaching out with her free hand into the pile of papers not yet sorted. The page she drew out was yellowed with age and creased with years of handling, but Mama smoothed it out with one easy hand, as familiar as if it was one of Gran's recipe-cards. "Look at this," she said, and pulled her arm from about Bell's shoulders to better point at the map—for a map it was, larger and far grander than any other Bell had ever seen. "Do you know what this is?"

"A map of the world?" Bell guessed, and her mother laughed, low and husky and sweet.

"Some of it, at any rate. But this-" And she pressed the tip of one ink-stained finger to a little empty space, just between some scribbles that seemed to be hills and a few little peaks that were probably meant to indicate a forest. "This is the Shire. See?" And she pressed her finger flat, covering the small empty space. "This is everywhere you've ever been."

"Oh," Bell breathed. She cast her gaze over the expanse of the page, her gaze skipping from wood to river to mountain, covetous. She had never dreamed that the world could be so big! "So where's Bree?"

Her mother moved her finger a bare few inches to the right, and tapped her nail against a little blot sitting at the cross of two road-lines. "Here."

"And is that as far as we can go?"

"Oh, no," her mother assured her, bright and smooth. It was a voice you couldn't help but believe. "We'll go so much further, you and I."

"Really?"

"As far as you want to go."

Just now, Bell felt as if she wanted to see the whole thing—every hill, every dale, every stream and every mountain range. She wanted it all, and here it sat in front of her. "But Auntie Mira said we wouldn't have enough coin."

"Oh, my darling girl." Her mother hugged her close, laughing her low, husky laugh, bright gold like the first taste of summer honey. "Don't you worry about coin. It has a way of taking care of itself, if you've a will for it." She pressed a kiss to Bell's temple. "You trust me, don't you?"

There was only one answer to that. "How soon can we leave?"

###### 

**NOW**

###### 

Twilight is falling over the Shire as Dwalin makes his steady way upward along Hobbiton's twisty roads. Gandalf's instructions were clear: take the main road up to the top of the tallest hill and knock on the green door with the runes inscribed on the front, and he thought it simple enough, until he got turned around twice before finding his way to the proper road. It's not put him in the best of moods.

He spares a thought to Thorin, the most directionally challenged son of the stone Dwalin's ever had the misfortune to meet, and shakes his head with a sigh. _He's going to be late,_ he tells himself, exasperation and fondness a familiar tangle under his breastbone. _Well, no helping it. We can always mount a rescue party if he doesn't show up by the time dinner is done._

He finds the door easily enough, once he gets his bearings straight, and knocks just above the promised runes, taking care to keep his knucks from scratching the paint. There's no answer from inside, and after a minute he frowns and knocks again. There's no mistaking the mark, so he knows he has the right home. Surely their burglar hasn't gone on walkabout?

He’s peering through one of the round glass windows near the door, looking for any hint of a light inside, when he hears voice behind him say, "Good evening to you."

He turns to find a hobbit-lass only a few feet behind him, leaning on a gnarled wooden cane and peering at him with undisguised suspicion. He glances at the open garden gate behind her, which he distinctly remembers closing behind him as he came up the walk. It had a bit of a creak in the hinges, loud enough to sound halfway down the road. Somehow she got it open without making a sound.

“Aye, and to you." He turns away, courtesies complete—but the creature doesn't move away. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her waiting, arms crossed over her chest and tapping one hairy foot against the cobblestones. He sighs to himself and turns back. "Can I help you, mistress?"

"It really seems like it'd be the other way 'round." She lifts one eyebrow politely. "Perhaps I can assist you with whatever business brought you here to the Shire?"

"My business," he growls, "is none of yours."

"Well, yes." He's taken aback at her easy capitulation, and moreso by the blithe way she continues, as if utterly unimpressed to encounter a dwarven warrior on her evening walk. "Only, we don't take easily to strangers in these parts, and I'm almost certain the neighbors have called the Bounders to deal with you. The faster you get what you want, the faster you'll be on your way."

About to scoff at the idea—what Hobbit guards could offer threat to _him?_ —he remembers, however belatedly, that they're here to ask for help. The last thing he should be doing right now is causing a fuss. But neither is he supposed to be spilling his tales to any curious soul that happens to ask—which is, more or less, what this hobbit-lass expects him to do.

Blast! If only they knew a bit more about this burglar, he wouldn't be in this predicament. Gandalf wasn't overly forthcoming about their prospective fourteenth. The directions came in a letter only four days past, leaving no chance to inquire further—just as the canny old bastard intended, no doubt. 

Wishing his brother was here in his stead, Dwalin cautiously allows, "I'm looking for a burglar."

"Here? At this address?"

He glares back. "Aye."

She stares at him for a moment longer, searching for Mahal knows what, before finally relaxing with a snort. "Well, you're in the right place, I suppose—or as near as you're going to find in the Shire, at any rate." She braces herself somewhat tenuously on her cane and makes a quick curtsey. "Welcome to Bag-End, Master Dwarf."

He squints at her, mistrustful of such easy capitulation. "You're a... neighbor, then?" he hazards.

The corners of her eyes crease up with amusement. “Something like that." She folds her hands over the engraved silver cap of her cane and peers up at him, her head tilted with birdlike curiosity. "A burglar, eh? Don't get much call for those, these days. Bit of a dying breed, really. You must be going on an adventure.”

He eyes the light press of her hands on the cane, the straight line of her wrists and her easy hipshot stance on the walkway. Almost as if, a mistrustful soul might think, she doesn't need it to walk at all.

"Something like that," he echoes back, which nets him a throaty little chuckle he’s heard many a time on the other side of a card table. Usually, he's forced to consider, from the man the man with a winning hand.

“Well, now, that’s _awfully_ exciting.” The halfling doesn’t do anything so obvious as bat her lashes at him, but she does flirt a glance upwards through them, coquettish and a little shy. “Nothing like that ever happens around the Shire, I’m sorry to say.”

“Is that so?” He wants to smile. Oh, she's good. He prides himself on the ability to spot a cheat at twenty paces, but he's man enough to admit she had him completely fooled. “Well, I’m sure you’d know all about that, Mistress…?”

He thinks for a moment she’s going to keep up the pretense; she holds his gaze for a moment, her face all breathless curiosity with a calculated hint of confusion. And then, when he merely waits, she breaks first with an artful little laugh, tossing her curly hair from her eyes and looking back at him sidelong with a rueful little smile.

“Rumbled me out, did you? I suppose I am a bit of out of practice.”

“So you _are_ the burglar.”

“More or less. A little less than more, these days, but who’s counting?” She grins up at him. “Why, don’t I look like one?”

He makes a show of looking her up and down. She’s younger than he’d expect, from such a supposedly seasoned adventurer; still fresh from girlhood, with a narrow cheerful face and laugh-lines around her eyes. Her long hair is loose and windblown, the color of butterscotch toffee with streaks of faded gold from the sun, and she's dressed simply in a plain dress of dark green linen. Her only adornment is a silver watch-chain, looped once 'round her throat with the rest left long enough to disappear into her loose bodice.

“More like a grocer's daughter."

She laughs again, an infectious little giggle with none of the artful warmth of earlier. “Well, there’s worse things, I suppose.” She steps forward and offers her hand. “Belladonna Baggins the Younger, at your service.”

“Dwalin, son of Fundin, at yours.” She’s got a nice handshake, firm without trying to make it into a competition—although that might just be common sense on her part, given their respective sizes—and she doesn't flinch away from the steel plates in his dusters, as some would. He can feel callous on the palms of her hands, from sword or hoe he can't be sure, but they're smaller and fading, as if she's used neither in some time. And despite the cane still dangling desultorily from her left hand, to his eye she's near-perfectly balanced on those bare, furry feet.

“It's very good to meet you, Dwalin, son of Fundin." She doesn’t move away when she drops her hand to her side, but stays close, her head tipped back to peer up at him with a grin that makes it very clear that however closely he examined her, she was doing the same to him. He’d wonder what she saw, but he knows it well enough: a dwarven warrior, large and rough, naught but scar and gristle. There’s little mystery to him. “So tell me: what brings a strapping fellow like yourself to the door of a poor, retired thief?”

_Strapping?_ he thinks, with a blink, before the rest of her statement hits him like an anvil.

“Retired?”

“Yes?” Her voice lilts upwards, one brow climbing her forehead in polite question. “For seven years now, after the death of my mother. Did you not know?”

_Oh, bugger._

“No,” Dwalin says heavily. “I did not.”

The second brow joins its brethren. "I hope you underpaid your broker. Because if they gave you my name without telling you _that,_ then they certainly rooked you something fierce.”

“Didn’t have a name,” Dwalin grits out, mortification starting to burn up the back of his neck. Durin’s _beard,_ he’s going to _strangle_ that wizard! “Nor a ‘broker,’ whatever that means. All we had were directions to your door, and the wizard's assurances that you were the best in the business, so- What?" he says, at her pained expression. "What did I say?"

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she assures him, through gritted teeth. “I’m just going to kill Gandalf, is all.”

She’ll have to get in line. “You've made his acquaintance, then."

“Oh, I should say so.” Her fingers close around the head of her cane, like a cat flexing its claws. If she had a tail, it'd be lashing. “Though it’s been many long years since I’ve had the dubious pleasure. What did he promise you?”

“Nothing more than your consideration, mistress,” Dwalin says, because he’s not a stupid man, and only a stupid man would tell an irate woman that another was making promises on her behalf. “And supper for our company, before the road.”

“Well, that’s something at least. I’d hate to think he got your hopes up without bothering to consult me first." And then a spasm of distress crosses her face, so strong that he almost turns to see if an enemy is sneaking up from behind before the worry is replaced once more with irritation. "Wait a moment. Your 'company?' How many would that be, exactly?”

_Right,_ Dwalin thinks, _if Gandalf didn’t warn her, she wouldn’t know about-_

And then, for the second time in as many minutes:

_Oh, bugger._

“Thirteen,” he says, warily. “And Gandalf, of course.”

“Oh, of course. How could we forget Gandalf?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, her lips moving in either silent prayer or a particularly blistering curse. He winces in sympathy, but she masters herself quickly enough: it's only a moment before she takes a deep breath and straightens, an odd and terrifying determination on her handsome little face.

“Alright then, inside! I’ll need your help.”

Dwalin allows himself to be herded to the doorway, mostly to avoid getting bashed in the head with her waving cane, but he looks doubtfully down at her as she shoulders in next to him to unlock her door. “Help?”

"Unless you see someone _else_ around?" She rolls her eyes and shoves him over the threshold. It's only the suddenness of it that allows it work, of course, as he's easily twice her size, but he stumbles into her hallway, his left hand going to the dagger at his hip. If Belladonna notices she takes no heed, rushing past him in a whirl, tossing her cane carelessly aside into a corner and disappearing down one long hallway. _Without so much as a hint of limp,_ he can't help but notice. "In here!"

He narrows his eyes after her—there are very few people with the right to command him in such a tone, and she is most definitely not one of them—but he doesn't want to risk giving offense before Thorin can tender his offer, either, so he doffs his cloak and follows the sound of her cursing down a nesting of branching hallways to what seems to be a kitchen. She's busily yanking out a number of pots and pans and flinging them willy-nilly onto the scarred little wooden table in the corner, and looks up to glare at him, likely finding his obedience insufficiently snappy.

He only folds his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow back at her in return. Thorin uses that exactly same icy stare when he’s trying to bully Dwalin past his better judgement, and while he’ll admit she does an impressive job of it, she’s no Thorin Oakenshield. "Perhaps I could provide a bit more help, mistress, if you'd only tell me what you need."

There's a queer little pause where she draws herself up in icy temper, seeming to totter right on the veriest edge of losing it… And then her fierce expression dissolves into laughter, and she’s once more only a little hobbit-lass, with her soft bare face and a merry light dancing in her eyes. "I suppose you think me a mad thing, don't you?" she says, and doesn't give him a chance to answer. "I speak of _supper,_ Master Dwalin. Thirteen dwarves for dinner and nothing on? I’d rather face down a pack of wolves.”

“...ah.”

“‘Ah’ indeed. I’ll need a second pair of hands if I’m to get supper on the table before your friends arrive, and I’m afraid that yours are the only pair available. So unfortunately for you, I’m afraid I have to be dreadfully rude and press you into service.”

"I'm no great cook," he warns, which is an understatement of a degree he'll not admit to a stranger. "But aye. I'll help how I can."

She grins impishly up at him. "I suspect you're rather good at chopping things," she says, and he gives a great bark of laughter, pulled all-unwilling from his chest.

"You could say that.”

"Good." She nods to the pantry door, off to her right. "Scrub up and then chop everything you can get your hands on. I'll cook the lot. And Dwalin?”

He pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Aye?”

Her impish smile turns soft around the edges, and even with the strangeness of the circumstances, Dwalin finds he can’t help but smile back. “If we’re to be cooking together, you might as well call me Bella.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was a dwarf standing in the hall outside of her room. A very well-armed dwarf.

_Bollocks._

"Hullo!" Bell called cheerily. She didn't allow her gaze to slide to the axe belted at the dwarf’s waist, instead folding her hands in front of her, all earnest confusion. "You look lost."

"I hope not," the dwarf responded, in a gruff voice. "I'm looking for Belladonna Baggins. Have you seen her?"

Bell started eyeing the exits. She hadn't pinched anything from a dwarf in, oh, a year at least, but they were a race that knew how to hold a grudge, and that's a fact. Still, she didn't think she had any enemies among the stoneborn—not at the moment, at least.

Her _mother,_ on the other hand...

"Elder or Younger?"

The dwarf cocked his- no, _her_ head to the side. Always hard to tell with dwarves, but Bell had a feeling. "Beg pardon?"

"There's two of 'em," Bell told her helpfully, her accent thickening. "Mother and daughter, y'know. Which one would you be lookin' for? Mayhaps I can point yeh in the right direction."

The dwarf looked at her with keen eyes. She was dressed simply, but very fine for all of that, even with a great mane of dark hair and sword-callouses on her hands. Bell would bet her second-best blade that the thick beads braided into the ends of her thick wooly sideburns weren't pewter, but real silver. A noble.

And not a stupid noble, either, more the bloody pity. Too much money and not enough sense was Bella's favorite sort of person—whereas 'powerful' and 'clever' was the kind of combination that makes the soles of her feet itch. She hunched her pack higher on her shoulders, considering her options.

The dwarf lady looked a little amused, as if she knew well enough which direction Bell's thoughts were taking. "I'm not sure," she said, mockery making her tone arch. "Which one would I have the pleasure of addressing?"

_Bollocks._ Though it'd probably been a bit of a lost cause at the start, hadn't it? What with the 'clever' part, and all. Ah, well.

"Bell Yanger at your service, and your family's," she said, and bowed as smoothly as one could when burdened by a very full travelling-pack strapped to their shoulders. Fist to heart and eyes raised, in the dwarven style. The dwarf's eyebrows slowly climbed her forehead. "Unless, of course, you're here to tell me I owe you money, in which case, I wouldn't know what you're talkin' about, missus, I really wouldn't."

The dwarf lady cracked a smile at that sally, and Bell mentally awarded herself a point. "Not to worry, Mistress Baggins," she said. "I'm here to engage your… services."

She sounded tremendously dubious about the prospect, and Bell had to suppress a smile. At least she knew what she was dealing with, now. There were only two types of nobles to come to a burglar's door: those who were driven there by desperation, and those who were well-used to associating with less-than-savory elements as a matter of course. Bell vastly preferred dealing with the former, if forced to choose one or the other; the latter had a distressing tendency to try and clean up loose ends when the deal was done.

"And what would those be, missus?"

The lady frowns faintly. It's impressive. "I was given your name by a certain acquaintance I believe we share."

Bell cocked her head in silent question.

"Gandalf the Gray."

_Bollocks!_

Bell sighed and took her picks out of her pocket, nudging her way nimbly past the lady to the door behind her. "Aye, I know him well enough," she grumbled. "Interfering old busybody that he is—and coming from a hobbit, that should mean a very great deal!"

Her heart wasn't truly in it, though. Whatever else she could say about the wizard—and she could say a very _great_ deal, and often at volume—she'd never once been bored once Gandalf saw fit to poke his nose where it wasn't wanted. And Bell did so _hate_ to be bored.

The lady stepped obligingly out of her way, though she showed none of the triumph Bell would expect, for a noble who just got her way. Instead she looked down at the picks in Bell's hand with something like consternation. "Is this not your room?"

"Of course it is, why would you ask?" The lock clicked open, and Bell gestured politely ahead of her. "Come in, come in. Let me just my things away, and then you can tell me what manner of gewgaw you'll be wanting me to lift."

The door closed behind the lady with a shade of perhaps unnecessary force, and Bell turned with her pack halfway off her shoulders, brows raised in question. "What'd I say?"

"I am not here," the lady bit out, "to ask you to _steal._ "

_Nobles._ "Then you're talking to the wrong thief, your ladyship. I'm not much good for aught else."

There was a moment where Bell thought she might get an axe in the face for her trouble—she never did learn when to keep her smart mouth shut, unfortunately—but then the lady let out an explosive breath and turned away, worry overtaking her fit of pique. "I thought much the same, when Gandalf gave me your name. But he assured me you were the woman for the job."

Hmm. "Then you might as well tell me about it," Bell coaxed, letting her pack slide from her shoulders with a thump. There was nothing in it she couldn't bear to leave behind, and she could still make it to the window before the lady could make a grab for her axe, but perhaps it would soothe her client's twitchy nerves if she seemed less ready to run. "And if it's out of my reach, I'll send you on to someone who'll treat you fair. Thief's honor."

That last sally earned her a burning look, but then the lady sighed, folding her arms over her chest. "It's not a, a _thing_ , that I need retrieved. It's a person."

Bell blinked. That was a new one. "How's that, exactly?"

"A member of my… clan," the lady said, obviously choosing her words with care, "has been arrested. For a crime he didn't commit," she clarified, before Bell could so much as open her mouth to ask.

Hmm. That _was_ a pretty pickle, and make no mistake. The law wasn't kind to dwarven-kind, and Bell knew it fair well, having run afoul of a few Men who couldn't tell the difference between a hobbit and a dwarrow, slim and beardless though she might be. Of course, _she'd_ usually deserved it. She'd just have to take the lady's word for it that her clansmen did not.

"So why come to an… honest businesswoman like myself? Bribe the magistrate and be done with it."

"Well, it's a little more complicated than that," the lady allowed.

"What a surprise," Bell sighed. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and gestured for the lady to take the rickety wooden chair under the window. "Have a seat, then, and tell Auntie Bella all about it."

###### 

**NOW**

###### 

When the next guest arrives, Dwalin is deep in piles of salted ham and potatoes and their hostess is rapidly stuffing a pair of chickens. "Come in, the door's open!" Bella shouts, more to the open window than anything. A minute or so passes, and Dwalin begins to wonder if he should go investigate, but then Balin peers through the open door to the kitchen, looking very perplexed indeed but pleased to see him, nonetheless.

“Evening, brother.”

"By my _beard,_ ” Dwalin vows, leaning away from the cutting board to give him a proper greeting, “you're shorter and wider than last we met!" Bella jumps in surprise as they clap foreheads. "Just look at you!"

"Wider, but no shorter, and sharp enough for the both of us," Balin retorts, looking smug as he always does. He nods to the stove, where already Bella has four pots bubbling merrily away. "What's all this, then?"

"Apparently the wizard neglected to mention to our host that she'd have our company this eve," Dwalin tells him. "We're preparing an emergency supper."

"I don't believe any sensible hobbit would allow you to so much as fry an egg in her kitchen, brother-mine," Balin drawls, but he looks instead to Bella, his eyebrows raised. "It's very good to meet you, mistress. Balin, at your service."

"Belladonna Baggins the Younger, at yours," she replies, her hands stuck deep in the chicken. "You'll forgive me if I don't shake, of course."

"Of course, of course." Balin isn't polite enough to ask further, but his gaze flickers to the bare backs of Dwalin’s hands, the knuckle dusters set safely aside on the kitchen table, and then back to Bella’s face, his warm smile only a little quizzical around the edges. "Well, I'm sorry indeed that we're putting you to so much trouble, but I can't say that my stomach isn't growling already. How may I lend my hands?"

"I do believe your brother has the chopping quite under control," she says, with a gamine sideways smile toward Dwalin, "but if you could roll one of the ale kegs up from the cellar, there, and into the main room, and watch the door for any other arrivals, I'd be in your debt. We'll get the big table moved to the front so we can all fit as soon as a few more hands arrive."

"You can count on me," Balin says, and bows, hand over heart. He shoots Dwalin a sharp look as he straightens, but Dwalin just shrugs. Trying to make sense of people isn't his job; hitting and cutting things is. Right now, he's cutting potatoes. His brother can puzzle out the halfling; _he_ just wants supper.

Kili and Fili arrive next, some few minutes later, making a great deal of noise at the door before being herded into the kitchen by Balin to make their greetings to their hostess. This time Bella's hands are clean enough to shake, though Kili bows over her hand and kisses her knuckles, the irrepressible flirt, and doesn't manage to scrape up an apologetic look even when Dwalin growls at him.

Bella just laughs and sends the pair of them off to help Balin move the table. "Should I release you from your servitude to help them?" she asks Dwalin, still smiling, and he huffs into his beard before grabbing another handful of potatoes.

"If they can't lift a hobbit-made table, then they're welcome to grow a bit more till they don't shame their family."

She laughs, and he glances over to see her looking up at him from beneath her long, sooty lashes. "I can't say as I'm adverse to the company, good sir," she murmurs, and mercifully turns back to the stove before he need muster up a reply.

It's some minutes later when a great clatter and commotion comes from the front door, and then the rest of the company, absent their king but including the wizard, descends upon them. Dwalin is relieved of chopping duty by a tutting Dori, and then there are no more sidelong smiles from the hobbit as he gets swept up into getting food onto the groaning table. Much of it is still cooking, of course, but there's enough to make for a fine starter, and after Bella finishes fussing with things in pots, she joins them at the table for a raucous meal.

She declines to take a chair, ushering Gandalf into the one left open for her at the head, and instead wanders here and there around the table, passing food down the line and refilling water from heavy glass pitchers handing plates and silverware to those who need it—and snatching food off people's plates, when they're otherwise occupied. Dwalin watches her progress, eyes narrowing. The only person whose plate remains unmolested is Gandalf, but whether that's from respect of a healthy dose of caution where a wizard is concerned, he doesn't know. The third time she reaches past _him_ when she thinks he's not looking, he catches her wrist in his and turns her back to look at him, his brows raised.

"Can you not take a plate of your own, thief?"

But she merely laughs, looking pleased to have been caught. "Ah, my dear Mister Dwalin, where's the fun in that?" And then she winks, and tugs her wrist gently free of his grip, her fingertips skating over the line of his palm. "Besides, I need to stay up, so I can look after the pots."

He closes his hand around the lingering brush of her cool fingertips, then heaves a sigh and stands, looping around the back of his chair and nudging her into it. "Sit," he commands gruffly, sincere if not polite. "I can stir things as well as any."

She sits obediently enough, letting her head loll over the back of the chair so she can grin at him, upside-down. A merry creature, this hobbit. "Does this mean you'll let me take your plate?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," he threatens, and goes off to the kitchen to stir things. But when he comes back he's got another plate in his hand, and she grins at him triumphantly as he fills it from the rapidly emptying platters and comes to stand behind her chair, glaring at the others as they give him teasing looks. He may be an uncultured barbarian, as his brother likes to sigh, but even he knows that it's wrong to keep a lass on her feet in her own dining-hall. It's the least he can do.

The table is starting to look a little picked clean when Bella returns him the use of his chair. "I need to serve the rest before they riot," she explains, when he would protest, and hip-checks him back towards the seat. He complies, grumbling a bit to himself, but every thought in his head evaporates when he feels her bend over the back of his chair and plant a kiss right on the top of his bald pate.

"You're a sweet lad," she tells him, a smile in her voice, and then calls, "Kili, Fili! Earn your supper and help me serve the rest."

The lads all scramble to comply, but not before Fili shoots him a teasing look and Kili purses his lips in a mockery of a kiss. Dwalin puts his hand to the hilt of his dagger, and Kili scoots out of the room—though he doesn't stop grinning, the little fiend.

Dwalin turns back to the table to see Balin across from him, watching him steadily with brows raised. "What?" he growls, but his brother merely shakes his snowy head, looking amused.

"Oh, nothing," he drawls. "Nothing at all, my dear brother. Only that your cheeks seem quite flushed, all of a sudden. Perhaps it's the ale?"

It's most certainly not the single tankard of ale he's drunk, and his brother knows it well, but he chooses to ignore the jest, bending instead to his picked-over former plate. To his mortification, though, he can feel the tips of his earning burning with a flush. _Well, bugger._

Mercifully, the blush has faded by the time the lads come tromping back with platters and giant pots of food, earning a cheer from the rest of the table. There's a pair of roasted chickens and a few meat pies, small filling things that could be finished quickly in her overburdened oven, and most everything else in the pantry went into a few pots' worth of hearty stew. Bella thought it the best option for getting a large amount of food ready quickly, though she fussed over cooking the stew for a short hour, instead of the day of simmering it 'deserved.' Tasting her work, he hurries to assure that there's nothing to worry over, and the rest of the lads follow suit, shoveling food into their mouths as fast as they can, like they haven't just eaten a table's worth of starters.

It's quite difficult to steal food out of a stew bowl, but Bella takes up at his elbow and nonetheless makes a valiant go of it. He keeps losing pieces of potato, and more than once he looks up to find that his hearty slice of meat pie has gotten smaller. He glares at her in exasperation, but she only grins back, unrepentantly chewing her stolen meal. He rolls his eyes, but he also nudges his plate a bit closer to the edge, causing her grin to grow wider, and her gaze to turn speculative in a way he doesn't quite trust.

Eventually the meal winds down, and when they tap the last keg Fili takes it upon himself to fill tankards for the final quaff. He's likely had more than his fair share already, since the lad climbs onto the bloody damn table to do it, but before Dwalin can grab the pup by the scruff of his neck and haul him down, Bella starts laughing in great hiccoughing whoops, clinging to the back of his chair for balance. _Well, at least she's been around dwarrows before,_ Dwalin tells himself, contenting himself to a heavy glare that Fili studiously ignores as he passes along a tankard. _She can't be too surprised at the lad's table manners—such as they are._

She gets her revenge moments later, anyway, when she nips the last mug from Fili's hand, clearly meant for himself. Fili blinks at her, surprised to find himself empty-handed, but then Kili calls the count and they're off before Fili can pour himself a replacement. Bella's not the first to finish—Bombur has that honor, as always—but she's far from the last, either. She even finishes before him, something that leads to a great deal of raucous teasing from the rest of the company.

"Do you not breathe, burglar?" he demands, twisting about to see her face. He doesn't have to turn far, as she's tucked up against his side, squashed between him and Gloin, and the slight weight of her against his arm is distracting. A few mugs of ale aren't enough to addle his head, by any means, but the room feels warm and close, and the scent of roses rising from her unbound hair is maddening.

She grins down at him and tweaks one of his beard-points cheekily. "Well, I've always been able to swallow quite a bit," she murmurs, low enough that it carries to his ears alone, but he's sure from the violent shade of red he's turning that the others can make a guess at what she's said. Bofur, in particular, gives a loud two-note whistle, and the table falls about in laughter. When Dwalin glances back up at her, she's blushing a fair bit herself, but she's also laughing as hard as the rest, her head thrown back, displaying the long bare line of her throat. He looks away fast.

Everyone gets up after the final quaff, milling about and stacking leftover food into a few pots and pans, and Bifur stations himself at the sink, with Dori next to him, ready to dry. Most of the pans are scrubbed quickly enough, but things get a mite out of hand when Ori says, all-unknowing, "Excuse me, Miss Baggins, I'm sorry to interrupt, but…"

Bella looks up from where she's admiring the little pictures of Gloin's wife and son, her smile easy and welcoming. "What is it, lad?"

"What should I do with my plate?"

"Give it here, Ori," Fili says immediately, with a gleam in his eye that says he sees a chance to repay their hostess for her trick with the ale. Dwalin winces, because he knows this game. The lads used to play it all the time at family dinners, until they nearly put their mother's eye out with one of the dinner knives one day when she came back from the kitchen earlier than expected. And Kili and Fili are, at the best of times, not exactly above showing off.

Sure enough, Fili takes the plate before Dwalin can call a warning and hurls it to Kili, who scooted to plant himself in the doorway as soon as he heard his brother. Bella gasps, but Kili flings it on to Bifur, and while Dwalin can't see through the door into the kitchen from here, from the lack of crashing it's apparent Bifur caught it easily enough. Bella leaps to her feet, hand outstretched like she's going to snatch any other such wayward dishes out of thin air.

"That is my mother's Westfarthing crockery, and it is over one hundred years old!" she calls, loud enough to carry over the raucous cheering of the company. "If I find so much as a chip in it, I'm taking reparation out of all your hides!"

Dwalin puts a hand to her thigh, stilling her. "They'll not break your things, mistress," he tells her, amused at her scowling. At least she has a temper for some things, does the burglar. He was starting to wonder. "We're not such poor guests as that."

She looks at him a moment more, lips pursed, then tilts her head in assent. Bofur, already with the next plate ready in his hand, whoops and slings it down the table to Nori.

After that, the plates and bowls start flying thick and fast. One goes whirling past Gandalf's ear, missing only when the wizard ducks to avoid the missile. "Watch it, there!" the wizard calls, and Bella hisses with annoyance at his elbow.

"Could you at least pretend to watch where you're throwing those?"

"Ah, lass, we'll not ruin your cookware," Bofur says cheerfully. "That would be _rude._ "

"Yes, rude!" Nori chimes in, and all of them not involved in the Great Cookware Caper start drumming on the table, giving a rhythm to the workers. Dwalin shrugs and joins in, perversely pleased when Bella turns her angry stare to him as well.

"What's rude is how you're going to blunt my knives!" Bella says, causing Bofur to burst out with laughter at her unwitting jest.

"Did you hear that, lads?" he calls, and everyone starts stomping their boots as well, picking up the rhythm a bit to match the old cleaning song. "She's says we'll _blunt the knives._ "

"Can't have that!" Kili calls, and starts off the song, with the rest following suit in short order. Bella glares at them all impartially, but apparently she's a temper like Dwalin's own, a summer storm over the plains that's gone as soon as it arrives, and by the time they're halfway through the song she's relaxed enough to hum along, if a little resentfully. Fili and Kili get fancy and make up a couple of extra verses in the middle just to keep the rest of them laughing while Bifur and Dori finish stacking the dishes on the sideboard, but eventually they wind back to the song proper, and as the last verse draws to a close, Bella jumps to the table herself and shouts the last line along with the rest of them:

_"That's what Mistress Baggins hates!"_

The company roars their approval, and Fili takes a bow, grinning fit to split his face right open. "And one for our hostess!" Fili calls, and Bella curtseys right there on cleared table with a great swish of her skirts, laughing as they all stamp and clap. She drops to sit on the edge of the table, her furry bare feet swinging free below, and Fili goes to the keg to drain a final tankard of ale, looking quite satisfied with himself indeed.

"And now _that's_ what I call a proper meal," he says. "Well done, Mistress Baggins, well done indeed."

"Ah, I wasn't cooking alone," she says, and nudges Dwalin's elbow affectionately. She leans precariously forward, her elbows balanced on her knees, and shoots him an appreciative look from beneath her lashes. "The credit is shared."

"Everyone knows Dwalin can't cook, so I'm afraid you'll just have to accept the honor yourself," Kili says, sliding back into his chair. Dwalin glares at him and throws a stray roll at his head, which the lad catches neatly and shoves into his mouth with a wink.

"Well, I must certainly thank you all for a wonderful evening thus far," Bella says with a grin, tossing her head. A stray lock of hair sticks to the sheen of sweat at her throat, and Dwalin's gaze follows its path for a moment before he wrenches his gaze away. "An unexpected pleasure indeed, and quite worth the damage to my poor pantry. But didn't Dwalin tell me you numbered thirteen?"

" _Our great leader is not here,_ " Bifur says, down the table _._ Dwalin snorts before he can stop himself, and earns a kick under the table from his brother.

"Ah, he's just running a little late, is all," Balin says, glaring him silent before Dwalin can make any ill-advised comments about their fearless leader's lack of directional abilities. He's known Thorin long enough to see his first clumsy swing with a sword and will make fun of him if he damn well pleases, but his brother's always been more circumspect when it comes to Thorin's princely pride. "He travelled north to a meeting of our kin. I'm sure he'll be along shortly."

"Very mysterious!" Bella says, with a smile. "So this is your leader you speak of, then? I was wondering when he would show up."

Gandalf looks at her sharply. "What makes you say that?"

But before she can respond—cuttingly, judging by the scorn on her face—there come three loud knocks at the door, causing silence to fall in the room. Those of them that know Thorin recognize his abominably imperious knock, and the rest can guess.

"Speak of the phantom and he appears!" Gandalf says, with a little snort. "He always did have a fine sense of the dramatic."

The _wizard_ certainly isn't too worried about poking fun at Thorin, Dwalin thinks, watching Bella's eyebrows climb upwards. "Well, then we must certainly let him in, don't you think?" She hops back down the floor, steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder as she lands soundlessly on the polished wood floor. He can't hardly feel it through the layers of fur and armor, slight as she is, but when she saunters off toward the door, he gets up and follows, and surely as if she'd hooked him like a fish.

Gandalf beats her to the door, based on proximity or sheer wizardly magic Dwalin doesn't know, and they both reach for the knob at the same time and pause, their hands mere inches apart. There follows a brief but intense silence, in which any number of things seem to be said between wizard and burglar with nothing but a bit of pointed eye contact, and then Gandalf inclines his head and withdraws with a smile, gesturing toward the door as if to say, _after you._

And then there is Thorin, standing on the mat in his fine coat and best mail, hand raised as if to knock a second time. Both king and burglar pause, arrested at the suddenness with which she yanked open the door, and stay that way for an uncomfortably long time, just staring. Dwalin feels himself shifting from the sudden tension in the air, wanting to reach for a weapon he's not wearing, with no idea why. It's just Thorin, the same scowling face he's known since he was knee-high to an axe-haft, but there's just something, about his expression maybe, or perhaps the look in his eyes-

"Bell," he breathes. "It's you."

"Hullo, Thorin." Bella's voice is uncharacteristically soft, and when Dwalin gathers himself enough to gape over at her, there's an expression on her face near a twin to Thorin's own. Like a dwarrow lost in the dark, only to spot what they think is the gleam of light at the other end: disbelief, and wonder—and just the faintest hint of fear. "It's been a long time."


	3. Chapter 3

The difficult part of a jailbreak, in Bell's experience, wasn't getting _into_ the jail. Quite the opposite, in fact: it was the easiest thing in the world to slip right in the front door, dressed like one of the half-grown urchins used as message-runners by most any magistrate's office. And once she made her in at shift change, she had only to leave her little gift in the kitchen, and then find some small space to squirrel herself away until everyone else was abed.

Neither was it particularly difficult to lift the keys from the gaoler. He liked to take a nap in his office after supper, as everyone knew—or at least all of the unsavory sorts that lurked around the back corners of the cheapest tavern in town—because he needed an excuse to avoid going home to his shrew of a wife, and Bell was more than happy to take advantage of the fact. The woefully cheap lock on his door didn't stand up to less than a minute of attention from her well-made picks, and the herbs in his stew left him quite unlikely to rouse as she went through his ledger, making just a _few_ small corrections in a hand the veriest expert would be hard-pressed to say wasn't his own. She slid the keys from his belt with practiced hands and blew the snoring fellow a kiss as she slipped back out of his office on soundless feet, taking care to lock the door behind her.

It wasn't hard to find her target, either. It was a very small town indeed that had turned against her woefully accosted young gentleman; the magistrate wasn't used to seeing more than a few pickpockets or brawlers in his care. There were barely a half-dozen cells in the basement of gaol-house, and half of them stood empty: on one end a pair of snoring Men sharing a bunk, and a woman passed out in a puddle of her own vomit on the other. There was only one dwarf to be found, a burly fellow in fine scale armor dozing upright in a chair, with his arms folded across his chest. He had a short dark beard and a great mass of black hair just starting to vein with silver, and even in his sleep, with his face swollen with bruises and streaked with gaol-filth, he was a dead bloody ringer for Bell's client.

She sighed to herself. No, getting this far wasn't difficult; even a lesser thief (to which category Bell consigned all but a few rare individuals) would have had an easy time of it. The hard part would be to get back _out_ again without her new friend buggering something up.

People could _always_ find a way to cock things up, in Bell's experience. Others could keep their complicated schemes and their confidence games, lies piled on top of each other like an elaborate wedding-cake. Bell had always favored instead the challenge of a wary mark with a good blade and tight purse-strings, or perhaps a third-story window and a really cracking safe. This sort of business wasn't really in her wheelhouse.

Still, coin was coin, and this one's sister had left a nice sack of gold in Bell's keeping, with a promise of more to come once the job was done. _So get on with it, my gel,_ she tells herself in her mother's voice. _The job won't go any faster for your wishfulness._

She whistled low to draw the dwarf's attention, then promptly took a generous step away from the bars, in case he took exception to such a rude awakening. Which seemed wise, a moment later, when he came to his feet all in a rush at the sound, his hand reaching up towards his back for a blade before his eyes were even all the way open.

Dwarves. Honestly.

When he found no hilt for his seeking grasp, however, he turned to her, his blue-gray gaze going stormy with temper. "What do you want?"

She decided generously to forgive his ill manners; after all, he was having something of a very bad day. Instead she lifted the hand with the keys and wiggled her fingers in greeting. "Hullo."

He stared at her for a moment, then scowled, folding his arms over his chest once more. "My sister sends a _child_ to my rescue?"

It would be pointless to get offended; she'd gone to some effort to produce exactly that assumption with her dress. Still, she had to firmly smother a twitch of irritation before she spoke. "Oi, watch it. You're not exactly what I'd call vertically gifted, either."

His eyes went narrow at the insult, but then his head cocked slightly, presumably at the realization that her voice, pitched deliberately back to her usual cadence, didn't quite match the rest of her. Not stupid, then, any more Bell's client. She couldn't tell, yet, if that was good news or ill.

"A halfling?"

She cleared her throat gently. "Just 'burglar,' is fine, if you please. I'm not half of anything."

His stormy look didn't abate; if anything, he peered at her even more keenly. "How old are you, precisely?"

_Nobles!_ "Old enough to know that's a _bloody stupid question,_ " she hissed, losing patience. She wiggled the key ring once more, keys carefully held together in her palm so as not to clink. "You want out of here or not?"

The dwarf scowled at her, mirroring her own irritation right back through the bars. "It's not as simple as all that!" he hissed in return. "I can't simply disappear without question. There are forces at work-"

"Yes, yes, it's a great heap of political buggery." Bell waved that away. "My client filled me in. _You_ may trust that I know my business at least as well as you do yours-" She didn't bother to keep her thoughts from her face as she eyed his fine clothes with scorn. " _-whatever_ that may be. Let me do the job I've been paid for. To wit-" And she shook the keys a third time.

He watched her for another moment longer, his stormy eyes searching hers. She raised an eyebrow, mockingly. _Tick-tock, your lordship._

When he spoke at last, his voice was heavy with rue. "Have I any choice?"

She grinned. She could probably like this one, if given half a chance; there was a sense of humor lurking somewhere under all that fancy armor, she could just tell. "Not a bit," she assured him, and opened the lock. "You'll just have to trust me."

###### 

**NOW**

###### 

Thorin says nothing as he allows Bella to usher him in across the threshold, but Dwalin can see the questions piling up behind his teeth, like coals in a slag heap. The burning look he throws towards Gandalf, when he spots him, leaves no doubt as to who he blames for this unexpected reunion.

"I'm no longer the least surprised at your tardiness," Bella is saying. "Now that I know _you're_ the missing leader, all is explained. How many times did you get lost on the way here, exactly?"

"And here I thought your time away might have blunted your biting wit," Thorin sighs—though Dwalin, who knows him better than most, can tell he's very far from being truly upset about the fact. "Speaking of which, little mistress-"

Bella rolls her eyes. "Ah, here we go."

"-while it is of course very good to see you," Thorin bulls on, heedless as always of the obstacles in his path, "I must say I'm surprised you let Gandalf talk you out of retirement. You were quite set on it, last we spoke."

Gandalf clears his throat, stepping aside to allow Bella to shut the door behind him. "Yes, well," he hedges, "it's something of a work in progress."

Dwalin, off to the side, is likely the only one of the three who saw Bella open her mouth to answer—and, too, the only one to see her close it with a snap when the wizard spoke first. Now she bites her lip and turns away, fussing with the lock on the door while Thorin raises his brows at the wizard.

"Is that so?"

"For once, the wizard speaks the truth," Bella says, before Gandalf can answer. Her expression now is rueful, as if bothered by nothing more than an irritating group of house-guests, the moment's hesitation gone so cleanly it might never have been there at all. "Although it might be progressing faster if I had any notion of what precisely is going on!"

"Ah." Thorin glances awkwardly over his shoulder at Bella, who gestures for him to turn so that she can take his coat. "Well. I would have warned you, of course. Had I known it was you Gandalf wanted us to meet."

"Perhaps if you'd recalled my address, sometime in the last seven years," Bella chirps with asperity, but she snorts a laugh before Thorin can do so much as grimace in answer, pulling the coat from his shoulders. "Ah, it's worked out well enough. Don't trouble yourself on my account. Your man here was a great help in getting supper on the table; it's thanks to him that your company sits well-fed at my table."

Thorin doesn’t smile as easily as he once did, but his eyes warm up with amusement when he looks over. For a moment he looks almost like the lad Dwalin remembers, side-by-side in the practice room and laughing as he learned to swing a sword.

"You helped her cook, old friend? And no one was poisoned?"

Dwalin clears his throat. It's impossible not to smile when Thorin looks at him like that, but damned if he doesn't try. He'd like to keep his dignity in front of the wizard, at least. "Mostly I just chopped things," he says gruffly. "Your burglar here takes the credit for the meal, not I."

Thorin's expression turns rueful, hearing the question in Dwalin's voice as he always does. "Not my burglar," he says, low enough that even Gandalf, a scarce few feet away, might strain to hear. "But we'd be lucky to have her, if she agrees."

"No business before supper!" Bella says, turning back from the coat-rack, where Thorin's coat now has pride of place at the top. "And I know you won't have eaten more than a piece or two of _cram,_ Thorin Oakenshield, so don't even try to tell me otherwise. There's not much left after your company decimated my pantry, but I'm sure I can find something to suit."

"Always you're seeing to my waistline, Mistress Baggins." Thorin's smile returns to lurk somewhere in his eyes, though his expression remains grave. "Should I be worried you're fattening me up?"

“Merely worried of your temper,” she replies, a twinkle in her own, “and hoping it will be sweeter with some food in your belly.”

"Well, in that case," Thorin says, and gestures expansively to the hall. "Lead the way."

The company all shout greetings to Thorin when he joins them in the dining room, but Bella ignores the racket, herding Thorin to Gandalf’s vacated chair at the head of the table before slipping off to the kitchen. Thorin sits with a sigh that says without words how many hours he's been in the saddle, and nods a greeting to Balin.

“Tell me what I missed,” he commands, and Dwalin leaves his brother to answer as he sits back and lights his pipe, watching his king through the haze.

So. Thorin and the burglar, eh? It makes a certain sort of sense, now that Dwalin’s past the initial surprise of it. As head of their clan Thorin's forced to handle all manner of business down in the lowlands, so he spends more than his fair share of time in the towns of men. Plenty of time to meet a cocky young burglar and strike up a friendship, if he were so inclined. And he would be: Thorin has a not-so-secret weakness for well-intentioned troublemakers, just like every other stiff-rumped arsehole with more pride than common sense Dwalin's ever met. (And he's served the royal family his entire life, so he's met quite a few.) It’s not really as strange as all that, with a moment or two to think on it.

What Dwalin can’t quite figure out is why _he_ didn’t know about it. Thorin’s always been a secretive bastard, aye, even as a lad. And these days secrets are the only kind of treasure his king allows himself to hoard, with every extra penny going to feed and clothe his people. But those were secrets he kept from _other people._ Not from Dwalin.

Until today, he would have said that there was no part of Thorin that he did not know.

“Your friends wiped out the ale, I’m afraid,” Bella says, returning with a tray laden with stew and thick, dark bread, a tankard of some dark liquid tucked precariously in the crook of her elbow. “You’ll have to make do with wine—if you folk even drink that sort of thing.”

The last is said with a teasing lilt and a merry smile, and Thorin picks up his spoon at her urging, the stern corners of his mouth softening ever-so-slightly in response. “It’s well appreciated, mistress.”

She winks at him, then drifts away from the table and down the hall, and Thorin settles in to enjoy his supper.

Well, he tries to, at least. Balin makes the mistake of asking about the conference with the other dwarf-lords, and the company’s curious silence devolves into a series of shouted questions, so many at once that Thorin can barely snatch so much as a mouthful. You’d think he’d be used to such interruptions after raising his nephews for the better part of a century—Maker knows _Dwalin_ never has any such problems, after a lifetime eating at the public tables—but Thorin is, as ever, far too concerned with honor and not concerned enough with looking after himself. After the fourth time he tries to take a bite only to be set it down again, Dwalin takes pity on him and slams a fist down on the table, rattling the remaining mugs and silverware.

“ _Itkitî!_ Let the man eat.”

Thorin shoots him a thankful look from beneath his lashes and bends his head back to the bowl. Balin clears his throat into the guilty silence that follows, and smoothly steps in.

"The wizard can likely explain this next bit as well as any, don't you think?" 

Gandalf coughs on his pipe-smoke and clears his throat ostentatiously, straightening as much as he can under the short, rounded ceiling. “I’m sure I can manage,” he says, and pulls a folded piece of parchment out from a hidden pocket in his robe as he leans over the table. “Belladonna, dear, let’s have a little more- ah, thank you, prompt as ever.”

Bella sets the candle down next to where Gandalf is smoothing out the map on the table and follows suit with a dish of homemade toffees, more than he's ever seen in one place outside of a sweet-shop. The company dives in almost immediately, of course, bickering over the largest pieces, until a hushed sort of silence falls across the table, as everyone finds their jaws far too occupied with chewing to bother with any more interruptions.

“Sound strategy, burglar,” he murmurs to her, when she settles between him and Gandalf. “Can you parry so well with a blade?”

She shoots him an amused look from beneath her lashes and takes the pipe he holds up in silent offer. “I’ve been known to hold my own,” she murmurs back, and leans against the side of his chair, drawing smoke deep into her lungs.

At last Gandalf finishes fussing with the map, and straightens. “Far to the East,” the wizard says, his rich voice somehow expanding to fill up every corner in the room, “over ranges and rivers, beyond woodlands and wastelands, lies a single, solitary peak.”

It takes a clever tongue indeed to keep a dozen souls spellbound with a tale they’ve heard a thousand times, but the wizard is, whatever else his faults, a master storyteller. Dwalin, who was there when Smaug attacked, has little interest in hearing the doom of his people as if it happened to someone else, and amuses himself instead with blowing smoke-rings, competing silently with Bella to see who can make the biggest or the most fantastical shapes. She seems happy enough to lose to him, leaning against the arm of his chair and passing the pipe amiably back and forth—and taking advantage of every shift to insinuate herself further and further into his space.

Oh, she’s subtle about it, he’ll give her that. She makes it look like an accident, as if the press of her hip against his elbow is just a consequence of the tight quarters (and perhaps a desire to avoid Gandalf’s over-enthusiastic gestures). The arm draped loosely across the back of his chair is surely just to stabilize her precarious perch, to the outside eye; the brush of fingers against the bare patch of skin at the side of his neck just an accident. And the fact that she always catches his gaze when she wraps her mouth around the stem of his pipe—always placing her lips _just_ precisely where his had been a moment before—well, surely that’s coincidence, isn’t it?

Cheeky halfling.

Luckily for him, none of the others have noticed, too busy arguing over Óin's portents (bunk) and how many dragons Gandalf has killed (clearly zero) and then all getting summarily shouted down by a very surly Thorin (who does, at least, manage to finish most of his supper first). Dwalin’s not eager to call their attention his way. He’s no complaint of a sweet-smelling woman wrapped around him like rashvine, that’s to be sure, and neither is he in any hurry to call down the storm of teasing that’s sure to follow when one of them does, inevitably, notice the burglar cozening up to one of their own.

"The task I have in mind," Gandalf says, eventually, after he's wound his tale back around to the hidden door on the map, "will require a great deal of stealth, and no small amount of courage. But, if we are careful, and clever, I believe it can be done."

“And that’s why we need a burglar!” cries Ori, in tones of great discovery. “To get in the back door!”

Dwalin winces internally as twelve heads turn suddenly in their direction, but Bella’s already moving, using the motion of tapping out the pipe-ash on the floor to shift smoothly away until she’s leaning more on the arm of his chair than on him. “Ah, and at last I see what brings you to my door,” she says, nothing but amusement in her voice. “I was starting to wonder when we’d get to that part.”

“Indeed, Belladonna is as skilled a burglar as I’ve ever met,” Gandalf says, sounding for all the world like a proud parent himself. “If anyone can do it, it’s her.”

“What the wizard is neglecting to mention to you fine folk,” Bella says lightly, handing Dwalin his pipe as if they’ve spent the last few minutes doing nothing so intimate as passing it back and forth, “is that I’m rather out of practice. Gandalf may have done you something of a disservice."

“Oh, come now,” Gandalf coaxes, with a charming smile that Dwalin mistrusts on instinct. “What happened to that girl that made away with my staff when she was but ten years of age, right from under my very nose?”

The company all make impressed noises—save for Thorin, who gives a snort of amusement as he mops up the last of his stew with some bread—but Bella merely laughs, shaking her head and sending her rose-scented hair brushing along Dwalin's shoulders. “I was thirteen, I believe, and the credit I think should rather go to my mother, who kept you so thoroughly distracted that you wouldn’t have noticed if a herd of oliphaunts made away with all your belongings.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Bella dear,” Gandalf says with a smile. “A wizard is not so easily diverted, and you had unusual skill even then. I doubt you’ve let yourself get so rusty as all that!”

“Perhaps,” Bella says mildly. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’d think first of a _retired_ burglar, for this grand adventure of yours.”

“Ah, well,” Gandalf hedges. “You haven’t been the only one to retire, these last years. Most remaining are more the... regular sort of thieves, whose skills won’t be sufficient for this particular quest. No, what this company retires is a _proper_ burglar, and no false modesty on your part will persuade me you’re anything less. Besides,” he says heartily, gaining steam once more, “you already know Thorin, and have worked for his family before. Very convenient, don’t you think?”

“For you, perhaps,” Bella retorts, though she does sound rather flattered at the praise.

Thorin looks at her for the first time since Gandalf started speaking, his gaze dark and heavy. “Does that mean you will not do it?”

“Ah, hmm, I didn’t say that.” It’s only because she’s so close that Dwalin can feel her unsteady intake of breath, not quite a sigh. “But there are some things we should discuss, before I can agree. Perhaps in my study?”

There’s a brief mutter of disappointment from the company (probably more because they’re going to miss the show than because she doesn’t agree immediately), but Thorin only nods gravely and stands, pushing away his empty bowl. “Very well. Lead on.”

Gandalf stands as well; eager to see his scheme through to the end, no doubt, not that Dwalin can entirely blame him. He waits for his brother to follow suit, as the soul generally held responsible for smoothing the ruffled feathers Thorin inevitably leaves in his wake, but Balin only stares at him pointedly, as if waiting for him in turn. Dwalin frowns at him, and his brother sighs and jerks his chin at Thorin’s back. "Go with them!" he mouths, and goes so far as to flap his hands in encouragement.

Shrugging to himself, Dwalin pushes to his feet and follows. He's served Thorin longer than most, of course, but he's not what you'd call a royal advisor, not by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps Balin thinks that Bella will look more fondly on Thorin's request with him there, but if so, Dwalin's fairly sure he's striking down the wrong seam. She obviously likes Thorin well enough already; if their acquaintance isn't enough to persuade her, Dwalin's presence won't make any difference.

Still, it's not as if he isn't curious. And when he catches up with Thorin, a few steps down the hall, his king looks over and smiles at him in silent greeting, and they fall in stride with each other as they always do.

Bella’s study is a cozy little sitting room, some ways down one of the back halls, with a big wooden desk under one of the round porthole windows that hobbits seem to favor, and two large bookshelves on either side. The contents are all a jumble, heavy leather-bound tomes with cracking gilt letters on the spines and cheap tuppence novels and heaping piles of scrolls, and she’s pinned maps to nearly every open bit of wall: Rohan and Gondor, and the roads west of the Shire, leading out to the Gray Havens and north to Ered Luin. And older ones, too, copied painstakingly onto fresh parchment in bold black ink: Ranger trails through old Arnor, Tinker paths through the Wilderlands marked with old Rohirric as well as Westron, and even a single ancient map of the western road to Moria, labelled with curling elvish letters and older than Dwalin's ever seen outside of an archivist's collection.

“Well!” Gandalf says heartily, after a moment. “It seems you might know the way through the mountains better even than I.”

“I like maps,” says Bella, with a shrug. She's perched on top of her writing-desk, her hands tucked between her thighs and her bare toes resting lightly on the seat of her chair. “Best way to figure out where you're going, and how to get there in one piece. And on that subject-" And she looks now to Thorin, who is studying the map of Moria, an unreadable expression on his face. "What's this grand plan for a burglary, anyway? It can’t be as simple as the wizard made it sound to the lads out there.”

“Now, Belladonna…” Gandalf says, and Bella makes a rude noise.

“Wasn’t asking _you._ I was talking to his majesty, here.”

Thorin finally turns around, studying her like a particularly interesting puzzle, or a knotty bit of of forge-work. "How do you mean? Smaug has taken the treasure of my people. I intend to take it back."

"Right, yes! Lovely goal. Full support.” Bella leans forward a little to peer at him. “It's only, I’ve always heard that Erebor held treasure beyond the telling of it. Oceans of gold and gems, as far as the eye could see, isn’t that what all the stories say? And a single burglar couldn't steal _that_ back in a dozen lifetimes, even without a dragon sitting on top. You need an army, not a bloody thief. So what are you really after?"

If Thorin is annoyed to be so called out, he doesn’t look it; in fact, there’s a gleam in his eyes that could almost be mistaken for approval. "I should have known you’d guess.”

Bella arches an eyebrow at him. “You really should.”

“Very well.” Thorin folds his hands in front of himself, and when he answers her question, it's only very slowly, as if deciding on his words as they leave his lips. “You’re more right than you know, about the need for an army. As the heir of Durin, I have the right to call together all the seven families of the dwarves and all their troops, to stand against a single enemy. But the vow that I would ask them to honor is sworn not to the crown, nor even to my blood, but to the holder of the Arkenstone, the King’s Jewel. It is the very heart of the Lonely Mountain, and though my grandfather tried to take it with him…”

“It’s still in Erebor,” Bella finishes, when Thorin does not. Perhaps cannot. “Guarded by Smaug.”

“Yes,” Thorin says, and nothing else. Just: _yes._

“Ah." There's a world of understanding in her mild voice. "Right, well, I can definitely see why you’d need a burglar. To get in, find a single jewel in an ocean of them, and then get back out without disturbing a dragon… ‘A great deal of stealth’ seems like something of an understatement!”

“And not generally the provenance of dwarves, as I’m sure we can all agree,” Gandalf cuts in, with a bit of a smile. “And while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of dwarf, the scent of hobbit is all but unknown to him, which gives us a distinct advantage. And you hobbits have your own ways of going unseen by larger folk, do you not?”

Bella’s hand goes to the silver chain at her throat, then drops again to her side, as if she’d touched a hot coal. “Some,” she tells the wizard. “Though I should think a _dragon_ is a little bigger than most of the Big Folk I’ve ever needed to deceive. ‘Chiefest and greatest calamity of our age,’ wasn’t that what the skinny fellow said? ‘Teeth like razors, claws like meat hooks, furnace with wings?’”

"True enough, my dear, true enough," Gandalf says, seemingly unperturbed. "But only think of the adventure! How many burglars can claim to have stolen a throne from beneath the claws of a dragon? You'd be a legend in the business!"

"Oh certainly—assuming I live long enough to hear the tales!" Bella snaps back. There's real temper in her voice now, sharper and colder than her outburst in the kitchens earlier. "Adventuring took my mother from me, Gandalf the Gray, which you know full well. I was lucky to get out before I followed her into the grave. And now, when I've finally made my peace with that, you want me to give it _up_?"

The silence that follows is heavy and awkward, Gandalf’s face twisting between frustration and guilt while uneasiness squirms like snakes in Dwalin’s belly. _Thirteen,_ he tells himself, _we always knew a company of thirteen was worse than no company at all,_ and here they are not even left yet and already the ill-luck has begun. None of them know any burglars still in the business; dwarves handle their own adventures, generally, and these past decades they’ve not kept up with the outside world as well as they should. None of them would even know where to _start,_ which is why it had been such a boon, Gandalf’s offer: one burglar, the best in the business, ready and willing to go. Only she isn’t ready, and she isn’t willing, and Dwalin can’t even blame her for it. If he had a home such as this, would he want to leave it either?

And then comes Thorin’s voice, very low but very clear, like the ring of a hammer on anvil:

“No. I don’t.”

Bella starts, as if she’d forgotten she and Gandalf had an audience, and when she looks back at Thorin, her eyes are soft with guilt. “Thorin-”

"But I'm asking anyway," Thorin continues, not quite looking at her. "I know- I know you long thought of settling here, to put your roots down in the home of your father and pass out your retirement. And it's a fine home, very fine indeed. But-"

" _Don't_ say it."

"Erebor, Belladonna," he tells her, and in his stormcloud eyes Dwalin can see something like temper, and something like pleading, and something else altogether, a passion that needs no name. "Erebor is waiting for us, and it may not be waiting much longer. There are dark things in the world of late, and Smaug has lain quiet since before you were born. Other eyes are turning towards the mountain. If we can claim the jewel, we can raise an army to take back the mountain. Our _home,_ Bell. This is our best chance, possibly our _last_ chance, and we need a burglar. Not some fly-by-night thief who thinks himself clever to take coin from a traveller's pocket, but a true burglar, with the courage and honor to stand at our side. We need _you._ "

Thorin falls silent at last, perhaps because that is the limit of the pleading his princely pride will allow him, or perhaps because he's simply run out of words. Or maybe he just feels like he isn't getting anywhere. A good argument's like trying to carve diamond: you can't simply blast away at it with brute strength, but must chip your way in, carefully, along the cracks and crevices until the gem reveals itself. Bella's usually merry face gives no opening for such leverage, still and flat like a pane of glass, giving away nothing.

And then:

"Blast," she says, mildly.

Thorin's eyes go wide with the same hope that's taking wing in Dwalin's heart. "Does that mean you'll do it?"

"Well, I can't hardly say no to that, can I?"

_Yes!_ Dwalin thinks, so fervently he has to glance about to be sure he didn't cry it aloud. But across the room Gandalf is going limp with relief, perhaps not as confident in his scheme as he'd made himself appear, and Bella is smiling sheepishly down at her hands, and Thorin-

"You can stop looking at me like that!" Bella protests—though she does it with a sidelong glance, almost shy under the weight of his wondering gaze. "Did you really think I'd say no? To the greatest burglary to ever be done in all of Middle-Earth? Honestly, it's like you don't know me at all!"

"My apologies," Thorin says gravely, his eyes so bright with feeling Dwalin’s momentarily surprised he hasn’t lit himself ablaze, "for the insult."

"Forgiven," Bella says expansively, but she's smiling back at him now, a soft helpless curl of pride and affection. "Besides, it’s not like I can’t retire again after I’m done, right?”

“Ah, Bella,” Thorin laughs. His smile is one Dwalin hasn't seen for years beyond counting, the one he had at Kili's birth, and Fili's mastery. Like the sun, coming up over the mountain. “I’ll believe _that_ when I see it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sorrelchestnut](http://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi!


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